Red Shores
by atree
Summary: AU. A young Ruby is taken in by Roman Torchwick, from whom she learns the art of the trade. With the Vytal Festival drawing near, she enters as a member of a slightly different team.
1. Heist

A/N: This is an AU fic I've been wanting to do for a while. I'm a slow writer, so expect updates to also be slow, and I honestly doubt if I'll ever finish this – but it'll be a fun ride while it lasts. Since this is AU, several characters have been played with, taking on roles slightly different from their canon counterparts (with Ruby, of course, being the major one). I've also taken down a peg Aura's defensive capabilities; it's probably easier to animate the same models over and over, but it makes for boring writing.

My biggest worry is that this fic becomes completely invalidated by canon, e.g. if they make Neo _talk_.

Chapter 1: Heist

The train wound through the valley like a snake. On both sides of the tracks, mountains jutted upwards at almost right angles, topped with dense maple trees that had turned blood-red with the season. Hidden among the leaves, concealed further by a red cloak, Ruby listened to the ring of the steam-whistle rise to a roar. The train will soon arrive at the ambush point. She took a deep breath.

"Alright, Neo. You ready?"

Next to her, the girl with pink-and-brown hair rolled her eyes.

"I was just _asking_ ," Ruby said. "Let's go."

She slid down the mountain slope kicking up a cloud of fine red dirt. The wind blew her hood back, tossing her hair behind her. Familiar to her was the thrill of the hunt, a cocktail of nervousness and anticipation in equal measure, and she had to laugh even as her laughter was swallowed by the roar of wind and steam-engine. Two-thirds of the way down, she vaulted forward, crashing onto the train's roof so hard she had to drive the point of her scythe into the metal to prevent herself from being thrown off. Neo, on the other hand, landed gracefully as a ballerina, umbrella cocked over one shoulder.

"Show-off."

Neo smirked.

They found the entry hatch two cars ahead. Ruby braced her scythe against the lock and pulled. The hatch popped open, revealing a mouth of darkness. She jumped down.

Right into an army of robots.

"Oh, come on!" Ruby said. "Mercury never said anything about this!"

The machines whirred to life. Atlesian Knights, judging by the shape of their helmets, and not old models, either. Each one stood six feet tall, chrome armor polished to an unblemished sheen glinting under the enflamed light of their faceplates. Their chests bore two insignia Ruby was intimately familiar with – a snowflake, and a torch inside a gear. Before the two of them could rise, a dozen Knights had already surrounded them, arm-blades extended.

"Intruders, identify – "

The bullet smashed its head to pieces. The wires poking out of its neck crackled and darkened; the Knight fell forward.

The other Knights looked at each other. Ruby could practically see the gears spinning inside their metal craniums, running through combat protocols. In that span of indecision, she had swept half the room, firing off six more shots that left her ears ringing in the cramped space. Six dull thuds as six metal bodies hit the floor.

The Knights reached her before she could fire her seventh. She brought Crescent Rose in a sweeping arc, the music of sharpened blade singing through stale air, and two Knights became four, bifurcated on the train floor. The third Knight slashed forward with both armblades, found purchase in nothing but a shower of rose petals. Ruby reappeared behind him, her scythe notched against his neck. She pulled the trigger; the bullet pierced the ceiling as the recoil severed the Knight's head. A lonely ray of sunlight fell through. The two remaining Knights came at her from both directions. To her they might've been moving through a film reel, one frame at a time. She dodged the right slash, dodged the left slash, then spun on the ball of her foot, swinging Crescent Rose through a full three-sixty-degree arc. The legs of the two Knights remained motionless on the floor; their upper halves toppled over.

Ahead of her, Neo had taken a seat on a crate. She crossed her legs and yawned.

"Thanks for the help," Ruby said.

Neo shrugged.

"What do you mean, it's not worth the effort? Well, I guess they _were_ rather easy," Ruby said smugly. She shook her head. "Anyway, we need to set the charges. You have them, right? – okay, that was a dumb question. Let's see, we're about halfway up the train, so all the cars behind us are carrying cargo. You set the charges. I'll – "

A metallic roar echoed from above. Ruby jumped back just in time to avoid being crushed by the eighty-ton Spider Droid that _how the hell did she not see that thing?_ Atlas's cloaking technology must be further advanced than they thought. Ruby made a note to hit Mercury on the head with her scythe the next time they met. The thing was as large as a tank – the train trembled with its steps – striped red and black like a tarantula, its upper body nothing more than four massive canons supported by four equally massive legs. For all its size, it had a flowing quality to it, moving with smooth, agile steps reminiscent of its namesake. An unknown prototype, then, and it looked like Atlas had managed to iron out the kinks with the known ones. Ruby grimaced. A single hit by one of those Dust-amplified canons would be the end of her. She stepped back, holding Crescent Rose in front of her like a shield. Next to her, Neo had stood up, eyes narrowed.

"We don't have time for this," Ruby said. "We need to detonate the charges before the train reaches the checkpoint. Oooh, if that happens, Dad'll be so mad! You go! I'll hold it off."

Neo hesitated. She looked at Ruby, biting her lip.

Ruby smiled. "I'll be fine. Trust me, sis."

Neo sauntered forward. The box car was cramped, the Spider Droid looming over the entrance with its body scraping against the walls. One moment it was motionless. The next moment it had shot forward, striking out with its leg like a scorpion's tail. Neo blocked the strike with the point of her umbrella, using the momentum – surely that had to break a law of physics somewhere, Ruby thought – to vault _over_ it. The Spider Droid's upper body rotated, its canons tracking her movement, heating up with a bright blue light. The bullet _plinked_ off its head. Ruby fired four more times, listening with dread to the dull, hollow echo of her bullets bouncing off its armor. But it was enough. The Spider Droid turned back, its single red eye zeroing on her.

The supercharged plasma beam swallowed the length of the car. Ruby managed to avoid it by pressing herself against the wall, but even still the heat left a scorch mark across her chest, white with pain. The beam blasted the far wall completely open, revealing a landscape of crimson trees and crimson skies, passing by at blurring speed, and the sunlight on that cold autumn morning was so bright Ruby was momentarily blinded, missed the Spider Droid's leg that smashed into her side hard enough to send her careening through the opening. She landed in open air. Something crunched in her abdomen. Shakily, she picked herself up, watching her coughs splatter blood against the train platform. She heard a high-pitched whirring, like a gyroscope spinning faster and faster, and that was enough; she threw herself to the side as a second blast tore through the air.

Red leaves swirled around her. The Spider Droid crawled forward. The steam-whistle blew three times, signaling the train's imminent arrival at the station. They were almost out of time – and so was she. The Spider Droid's canons lit up for a third blast.

Gently, Ruby unclasped Crescent Rose's magazine and replaced it. She held her scythe hilt-forward, shaft tight against her arm, blade braced against her back.

The beam tore through her, but she was no longer there.

She surged forward on the crest of a rose wave. Her first strike glanced harmlessly off its leg. Its other leg lashed out at her, but she was gone again, driving the scythe-blade into the crevice between its arms. She felt something give. She pulled the trigger, letting the recoil drive the blade forward to slice its arm clean off. The screech of breaking metal might've been a screech of pain. The Spider Droid swung around, firing off a blind blast that left a hole on the platform floor through which she caught a glimpse of tracks rattling by. She appeared next to its leg, the barrel of her rifle positioned in front of the thin crevice between its armor plates. The bullet tore through the joint as easily as if it had been made of bone and flesh. The Spider Droid tilted over. Her third strike cleaved through another arm, her fourth through another leg, her fifth finishing off both arms, and by this point it was no longer a challenge. The Spider Droid stumbled, barely upright. She appeared one last time riding its shoulders, the blade of her scythe hooked around its torso, and pulled the trigger. Metal groaned. Her scythe dug an inch further. She fired again, and again, and on the fourth the Spider Droid's long-suffering armor at last gave away, and the scythe-blade cleaved through its body with a noise like splitting thunder.

She dismounted and sank to one knee, gasping. Her vision was fuzzy – the first sign of Aura exhaustion. When she pressed a hand against the spot where the Spider Droid's leg had smashed her, her fingers came away red. Using Crescent Rose like a walking stick, she pulled herself upright. The air was brisk, ripe with the smell of coal as the train's engines carved a trail of steam through the sky. Around her scattered the dissected parts of the Spider Droid. In the distance, Neo was racing toward her, eyes wide with fear.

"Charges are set?" Ruby asked.

Neo glared at her.

"Oh, don't give me that look. I'm fine – "

Neo poked her finger at Ruby's side.

"Ow! Okay, I'm not fine, but I'll live, and it worked out in the end, right? Anyway, we have more pressing problems at hand. You set the charges?"

Neo jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

"No, we can't leave yet. The job's not over."

Neo gave her a disbelieving stare. Ruby staggered to the edge of the platform, where the chain-link coupled this car to the next. She broke the link with Crescent Rose. Immediately the platform shifted beneath her feet, almost sending her over the edge had Neo not been there, holding onto her arm with a slim hand. Wheels screamed against the rails. The platform ground to a halt as the cars ahead of them – full of crew members – pulled further and further away.

" _Now_ we can leave," Ruby said.


	2. Jumping Off

Chapter 2: Jumping Off

Roman Torchwick was annoyed.

That wasn't unusual. Those who served under him might call annoyance his natural state. But he reserved a particular annoyance for Cinder Fall, an annoyance that was like a combination of having an itch you couldn't scratch, forgetting where you left your helicopter keys, and finding out you put on your bowler hat backwards the entire day. The woman in question sat across from him – lounged would be more appropriate – yawning and idly inspecting her nails. Emerald sat to her right, sneaking glances at the clock. Cinder wore a low-cut red dress most men would find entrancing, but which Roman found flamboyant; when she spoke, the low, sultry tones of her voice bore all the beauty of a bloody knife.

"So, Roman, why are we here? It surely wasn't to enjoy your atrocious fashion sense."

"We are _here_ to discuss my new plan," he said, resisting the urge to point out the brand name sewn on his lapels. "You wanted to get rid of Beacon, yes? And rule over Vale? I suggest you pay close attention."

"You promised the same on that last White Fang job – "

"For the last time, my plan was perfect," Roman growled. "If those Faunus had any brain cells lurking behind their skulls, we would've gotten away with six tons of the stuff, clean, with nobody the wiser."

Cinder shook her head, a smile playing on her lips. "Roman, Roman, Roman, always the same excuses. I find a man who won't own up to his mistakes…distasteful."

"If I ever get a brain hemorrhage and decide to court you, I'll keep it in mind," Roman said. He felt the start of another headache coming. He would need another cigar when this was over. Really, Cinder was more trouble than she was worth – though she did have her uses, and undoubtedly he his uses to her. Their relationship was founded on the most solid foundation of all: mutual distrust. "Anyway, we're not here to discuss the past. We're here to discuss the future – _our_ future, Vale's future."

"Proceed. I'd rather not spend more time in this eyesore of an office than necessary."

"That vase you're eyeing is worth sixty thousand Lien," Roman said testily. "The Nevermore statue next to it is worth eighty thousand, and the painting hanging on the mantle is worth _at least_ one hundred and twenty thousand Lien." Cinder raised an eyebrow and went back to inspecting her nails. _Two_ cigars. The finest museums of Remnant did not have a collection half as exclusive as his. After an especially tiring day of scheming (which today was shaping up to be), there was something soothing in leaning back in his chair with Bacharale's opera on the record-player, eyes closed, legs kicked up on his desk, knowing that he was surrounded by luxuries a commoner could work a hundred years for and never afford – doubly so because he had stolen every single one of them.

"We cannot quite start yet," he continued, "because for a plan of this caliber, you two are, should we say, insufficient. We are currently waiting for the other two members – speak of the devil."

The door slammed open.

"We're here!" Ruby announced, striding in with Neo at her side.

Only forty minutes late, Roman thought irately. Luckily, Cinder and Emerald had shown up thirty minutes late, so they were really only starting the meeting ten minutes late. Sometimes he wondered if he was the only person who knew what a watch was.

Ruby's eyes lit up. "Emerald! Cinder!" she said, giving them both hugs – one returned willingly, the other reluctantly. Emerald laughed, rubbing the younger girl's hair, while Cinder smiled briefly before her expression settled back to its I-know-more-than-you indifference. Neo gave Roman her patented smirk – _hello,_ he had learned – and took a seat. The pink-haired girl was as much a mystery now as when he first laid eyes on her.

"About time you showed up," Roman said. "Surely a simple sabotage operation shouldn't be so difficult…" He stood up, cane pointed at the bandages at Ruby's side. "The train was supposed to be unguarded."

"Security was tighter than Mercury said it would be," Ruby said lightly.

"Really, now." Roman's eyes narrowed. "I think it's time he's due for a performance review."

"But it was no problem, Dad! Job went off without a hitch. You should've seen me!"

"I've already received the report. Twenty-four cars of Schnee Dust gone up in flames. Well done." He didn't mention the follow-up report of the crew members who arrived at the station ahead of the inferno, and who reported to the police that a red-haired girl wielding a scythe had led the attack alongside a girl wielding a parasol. Even those idiots in the Vale police force would be able to connect the dots. It was weakness that led to his silence – weakness, and stupidity. But later, he promised himself, looking at that face flushed with success. Clay can remain soft forever, but once hardened can never change shape.

He cleared his throat. "As I was saying, we are now finally gathered. Let me begin by saying that this plan will change the entire history of Vale – nay, of all of Remnant. Indeed, these next two hours will be so important that if a single word gets to Ozpin – "

"Enough with the dramatics," Cinder said with a wave of her hand. "I know how much you like your speeches, but try and cut it down to twenty minutes."

"It seems that some people just can't appreciate the finer points of the art of discourse. Very well. I shall be brief, though I wonder what can possibly be so urgent – "

"Salon appointment."

" _As I was saying_ , this plan will require the four of you to act as a team. I chose you four because – "

"No way!" Ruby clapped her hands together. "It's been _ages_ since I worked with you guys!"

"Not since that Dust shop robbery," Emerald said.

"That was what, two years ago? How time flies!"

Neo held up three fingers, pointed down.

"Really, only three months? I guess time doesn't fly," Ruby said thoughtfully. She turned to Roman, eyes sparkling. "So what'll we be doing?"

"I was _just_ getting to that," Roman said, wondering if it might not be easier to send out e-mails instead. Four pairs of eyes turned to him – one excited, one indifferent, one bored, one curious. They were a perennially belated bunch, who didn't recognize genius when they saw it, who wouldn't know fashion or taste if it smacked them in the head, who despite being some of the most powerful warriors of their age still struggled with basic tasks like eating cookies and _talking_ – but he wouldn't trust the job to anyone else.

"You will infiltrate the Vytal Festival."

* * *

Nobody would call Yang a patient person. She wouldn't even call herself a patient person, preferring to say the word "patient" in the same tone she would use to describe her obnoxious, white-haired teammate. Who, coincidentally, was currently trying the reserves of Yang's patience. The two of them stood in front of their dorm room, Yang with her hands on her hips, Weiss with her arms crossed. Blake leaned against the wall, watching them impassively, while Jaune was trying to sink into the floor. It was eight o'clock in the evening. After a day of training, Yang had wanted nothing more than to shower and hit the bed. Weiss had other plans.

"For the last time, _I'm_ going to participate in the second stage," Yang said. "It was a team decision."

"A team decision you made behind my back," Weiss snapped. "I demand a re-vote."

Yang threw up her hands in frustration. So what if she had decided to hold the vote, unannounced, while Weiss was in the middle of class? It was precisely to avoid this kind of situation that she did. Not like the outcome would've changed.

"Fine," she said. "All in favor of me, raise your hand – "

"Not so fast! You've already made your case. I still have to make mine." Weiss turned to her other teammates, smiling pleasantly. "I know we've had our differences in the past, but the Vytal tournament is too important to be arguing over trifles. We'll be facing the strongest Huntsmen and Huntresses of our generation. The doubles round will require intelligence, tact, resourcefulness, self-control, and the ability to remain calm under pressure – the very qualities that I exemplify and which are so sorely lacking in this woman next to me – "

"Oh, that is it!" Yang growled. "You want to do this the hard way? You and me. Practice arena. Tomorrow morning. Winner joins."

"See what I mean? Do you want this angry ogre representing us in the doubles – "

"Okay, that's enough. Everybody just take a deep breath," Jaune said, holding up his hands placatingly. "There's no need to fight between teammates. We'll do a re-vote. All in favor of Yang, raise your hand."

Yang raised her hand, shooting Weiss a defiant look.

"And for Weiss?"

Weiss raised her hand, smiling smugly, then turned to Jaune. "What are you waiting for? Raise your hand!"

"I'm the…uh…arbiter. I'll remain neutral. What about you, Blake? Who would you rather have as a partner?"

The black-haired girl gazed from Yang to Weiss with unblinking gold eyes. She had been chosen as a participant solely because neither Yang nor Weiss would pair up with each other. Truth be told, Yang wasn't entirely comfortable partnering up with Blake either – the two of them had exchanged less than a dozen words since the start of the term. Yang knew nothing about her save her name and that she had a penchant for fish – yet another one of their failings as a team. Three students at the top of their grade should _not_ be ranked so low on the team standings, Glynda was fond of telling them. The most grating thing to realize was that part of it was probably her own fault.

(But most of it was Weiss's.)

"Makes no difference," Blake said, and entered the dorm room, closing the door behind her.

"And we're back to square one," Jaune said with a sigh. "I tried."

"This shouldn't even be an argument," Yang said. " _I'm_ the team captain. Whatever I say, goes."

"Ah, I see a fundamental assumption has been wrongly made," Weiss said, "because clearly _I_ am team captain."

"That's what I hate most about you. Just because you're the Schnee heiress cruising on your daddy's money, you think that – "

"I simply believe a team captain should remain calm and collected at all times," Weiss said. Her voice had turned to ice, fingers white on the hilt of her rapier. "There's no need to wait until tomorrow morning. I think it's best we settle this now."

"We're in the middle of the hallway!" Jaune said. "Look, we're all tired right now. Why don't we forget about this and talk it over in the morning? Sound good? Great." He rubbed the back of his head, staring at the floor. "Besides, I thought _I_ was team captain since, you know, Ozpin appointed me. My name _is_ the first letter of our team name."

Yang and Weiss turned to him at the same time. Slowly, they turned back to each other.

"Nine o'clock tomorrow," Yang said. "Winner participates in doubles with Blake."

" _And_ becomes team captain."

Doubles indeed, Yang thought. It'll be a miracle if they ever get past the group stage.


	3. Arrival

Chapter 3: Arrival

Beacon stood on a cliff overlooking the bay. Ruby had been to Vale many times before, but never to the massive castle that dominated the cityscape – geographically, economically, and politically. An ancient construction, Beacon had been built thousands of years ago on the advent of the Grimm threat, to train warriors that could stave off apocalypse, and despite its countless expansions into the modern era, it still bore the Gothic architecture of its first builders. An immense wall surrounded it – more for beauty than for protection, because who would be stupid enough to attack a school of warriors? Jagged spires rose hundreds of feet into the sky, and dwarfing them all was Beacon Tower, the centerpiece of the CCTS, thrust upwards like an oak tree among saplings. Its tower face displayed an enormous clock whose precise telling of time – 11:47 a.m.– was visible even from the airship.

"Isn't it _so_ romantic?"

"We're here on a job," Emerald reminded her.

"I know…but Beacon! The Vytal Festival! Aren't you at least a littleexcited?"

Emerald shrugged. Cinder yawned. Neo blinked. Ruby sighed.

The airship docked at a landing bay filled with so many people Ruby felt as if she had been thrown into a multicolored ocean. They descended from the airship into an immense wave of noise. Students, visitors, journalists, and personnel swarmed around them – and were those _robots_? It was strange to see military robots mixing with civilians, stranger still that they weren't out to kill her. Every kingdom had representation here, from the casual, laughing students of Vacuo to the grim-faced mechanics of Atlas to the exotic, quiet warriors of Haven dressed in flowing robes. Banners bearing the crossed war-axes of Vale lined every wall, fluttering in the storms generated by the airships' engines.

"Look at everyone!" Ruby said. "And their weapons! Is that a _trumpet_? How do you even fight with that?"

"Poorly," Emerald said. "If we were here to win the tournament, this'll be a piece of cake."

Ruby grinned. "Who says we _won't_ win the tournament? Oh, don't give me that look, Neo. What do you mean, I'm getting ahead of myself? Just because we're here on business doesn't mean we can't have some fun!" She turned around to face them, walking backwards. "Imagine the crowd! The excitement! The fame! The _Vytal Festival_! The best Huntsmen and Huntresses in the world are going to be here! Everybody in the world is watching us! Doesn't it make your blood sing? Think about – Ow!"

She had backed into a metal pole – not a metal pole, actually, but a girl, about her age, with curly orange hair and a pink bow. The girl wore a simple blouse the color of sheet metal, lined with green tracings that glowed like fluorescent bulbs. She had not budged an inch even as Ruby had almost fallen over. "Sorry," Ruby said, rubbing the back of her head.

The girl turned around. Her eyes were large and bright and – disturbingly – never blinked.

"Sorry," Ruby said again.

"Salutations!"

Ruby glanced at Emerald, who had both eyebrows raised as if she had just seen a purple pygmy bear, then at Neo, who was snickering in that silent fashion of hers.

"Uh…hello," Ruby said.

"My name is Penny. It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"I'm Ruby."

"It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"You just said that," Ruby said.

"So I did!" Penny smiled, and in that smile Ruby was reminded of chocolate cookies with milk, of eating ice cream on a July afternoon, of splashing in puddles as rain drenched her hood, and despite herself and the not-so-subtle nudges from Emerald to leave, Ruby found herself smiling also.

"We're from Haven. These are my teammates, Emerald, Cinder, and Neo. Are you also here for the Vytal tournament?"

"Indeed!" Penny clapped her hands together, eyes lighting up with a glow that might've been happiness but which more resembled a lightbulb. "I'm from Atlas, and I, too, shall be participating in the Vytal tournament."

"Atlas, huh? That kingdom has some pretty advanced tech."

An undeniable note of pride entered Penny's voice. "The very best!"

"Maybe we'll meet each other in the group rounds."

"I certainly hope not! I don't wish to knock you out of the tournament."

"Confident, are you?" Ruby said, laughing. Penny was positively beaming now, and there was something infectious about her manner – infectious and oddly unsettling. People had often asked Ruby how she remained so energeticall the time, a question Ruby had always thought rather silly but which she wanted to ask now to this strange, orange-haired girl. "Well, not to brag or anything, but we're pretty strong, too."

"I'm glad to hear that!" Penny leaned in close to her, peering at her with those green eyes. She reminded Ruby of a doll. Her face was soft and round with freckles under her eyes, and her bob-cut hairstyle reminded Ruby of those china dolls displayed behind the windows of antique shops. On closer observation, Penny's clothes did not seem to be made of textile but from a smooth, sheet-like material, and if Ruby bent her head she swore she could hear the clicking of gears – and really, Penny was much too close now. Like a cat inching towards a ball, she had continued to lean in closer to Ruby, who had started to back away, which led Penny to lean in closer still, and perhaps they would've continued like that to the end of the kingdom had not a short dark-skinned girl tapped Penny's shoulder.

"Reservations have been made for us at the restaurant. We are precisely two minutes and thirty-three seconds late."

Penny's face fell, but when she turned to Ruby the smile was there again. "I shall see you later. I supremely enjoyed our conversation, Ruby. It's the first time someone besides Ciel or my father has spoken so many words to me."

"That's…kind of sad," Ruby said. "See you later, Penny."

"What a nutjob," Emerald said as she left.

"She's just…strange."

"It's about time for us to be going, too." Emerald pointed to a silver-haired man making his way towards them. Even in the motley crowd, he stood out the way an inkblot test pattern stood out in a museum gallery. Tall and pale, he wore a black-and-grey jacket outfitted with a pair of shoulder pads; there was something indescribably sinister in the styling of his hair, in the upturned collar, in the reflection of the light on the oils of his skin. He strolled up to them with his hands in his pockets, self-assured and confident, with a smile on his face, the smile of someone meeting old friends.

When he got in range, Ruby took out Crescent Rose and hit him in the head.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?"

"Just be glad it's not the sharp end," Ruby said.

"About time you showed up, Mercury," Emerald said. "Where would we be without our tour guide?"

"I'm special intelligence," he snapped, "and I'vebeen busy on highly important tasks."

"Special intelligence," Ruby said dryly. "Who else has such a reputation for highly reliable information?"

Mercury preened. "I trust that the Schnee job went without incident?"

Neo rolled her eyes.

"Not one bit," Ruby said.

"Enough bickering," Cinder said. "Is our hotel ready?"

"I've already made reservations," Mercury said.

Emerald laughed. "Lead the way, tour guide."

They took an elevator from the landing bay down to the entry room at ground level. Along the way, Mercury brought them up-to-date on the state of things. He had been here for three months, organizing the White Fang at Roman's command (" _Not_ just arranging your travel plans," he said, shooting Emerald a dirty look). Preparations were proceeding on schedule. Sixty-four percent of the city's Dust passed through their hands – seventy percent by the week's end. Ozpin didn't suspect a thing. Security had been tightened for the Vytal festival, but with so many people coming in, getting around was easier than ever, and Atlas's presence was the ideal opportunity to learn more about their tech. Already they had agents working through the ranks.

Ruby didn't pay him the slightest attention.

"So this is what school is like," she said.

They walked past lecture halls and training rooms alive with students preparing for the tournament. She heard the constant clang of weapons, the shouts of triumph or despair, the steady drone of a professor's voice – and laughter, always present rang the sound of laughter. The entry room opened into a massive courtyard that had been decorated with vendor stalls; the smell of hotdogs and barbecue reminded Ruby that for the last two days she had eaten nothing but airship food (as part of their disguises, they first had to take an airship from Vale to Haven then back to Vale). At the center of the courtyard stood a statue of a Huntsman and a Huntress raising their weapons above a cowed Beowulf. Gathered around the statue were students wearing the red blazers of Beacon, scrutinizing them carefully as they walked by, no doubt scoping out the competition. Ruby felt strange – and a bit shy, truth be told – to be surrounded by so many people the same age as herself.

"Amazing," she breathed.

Neo crossed her arms, looking at her.

"Doesn't it look fun? Waking up in the morning, heading to classes with your friends, struggling together with homework, going out on the weekends…" she sighed wistfully, looking at a group of girls talking animatedly in the shade of a tree. There was something extra here, something extra those girls had that she lacked, something that could not be learned from the best tutors money could buy – and Penny, she thought, oddly reminiscent. Penny had lacked it too.

"Don't worry about them," Mercury said. "None of them have been in a real fight. They pose no threat to our plans."

Good 'ol Mercury, Ruby thought with an inward groan. Always the pragmatist.

He led them past the school gates into the city of Vale, the capital of the kingdom, but the city held no mystery to Ruby. She had been here many times on previous jobs. Narrow cobblestone roads built before the Grimm threat crisscrossed clean-swept modern streets. Buildings bearing the sharp spires and soaring buttresses of the city's heritage lay next to buildings erected less than a decade ago from brick and mortar, plain and compact in comparison. Vale was a city of the new and the old. During the Vytal Festival, banners had been strung between streetlights and shop windows, advertising special sales or famous delicacies or cutting-edge technology, and everywhere, displayed proudly, were the crossed war-axes. Visitors from every kingdom strolled through the streets, speaking in accents that mixed and flowed like a thousand instruments merging into a single orchestra. Yet for all the color and grandeur of the festival, Ruby sensed a tension in the air; she saw it in the faces of the shopkeepers taught with worry; she heard it in the steps of military robots patrolling the streets.

"City's on high alert," Mercury told them. "Entirely expected, since we've been robbing every speck of Dust inside the kingdom. Dust prices are through the roof. Business owners open late and close early. Police have been getting desperate, arresting anyone they believe to even be remotely connected to the White Fang. We've got the city running scared."

"Is that what the robots are for?" Ruby asked.

Mercury's face darkened. "That's got something to do with Atlas. I don't know what Ironwood's planning, but it can't be good."

"Ironwood's a good boy," Cinder said with a short, mocking laughter. "I'm sure he won't interfere with our plans. How soon can we start Phase Two?"

"Within two weeks. We already have an agent in the school. But before that, there are a few things left to take care of."

"Let the kids handle it," Cinder said. "I've got a few dates of my own."

"I'm ready for anything," Ruby said.

But the real question is, she thought, gazing from the smiling faces of the visitors to the grim faces of the shopkeepers to the helmets of the Atlas military robots: Is Beacon ready? Is Vale?


	4. The Worst Day

Chapter 4: The Worst Day

Today was the worst day of Weiss's life.

Upon waking up, she had found her alarm clock out of batteries and that none of her teammates had bothered to wake her for class (though admittedly she _had_ threatened to kill anyone who got in the way of her beauty sleep). She had arrived twenty minutes late to Professor Oobleck's lecture, which normally wouldn't be a big deal, but for some reason that crazy professor had chosen today to actually take attendance! Then in Professor Porter's class, she had been called on to demonstrate how to fight a Boarbatusk, a demonstration she had welcomed as a chance to finally show her impeccable swordsmanship, before she made a slight miscalculation and found herself on the wrong end of its tusks ("Excellent demonstration, Miss Schnee…of how _not_ to fight a Boarbatusk"). Then she had gotten stuck with that oaf Jaune for sparring practice. What a waste of forty minutes! Practicing against a training dummy would've posed more of a challenge. What did Pyrrha see in that blond idiot anyway? If only they had _her_ instead of _him_ on their team! If only Ozpin wasn't so set on that ridiculous partner rule of his. Pyrrha was someone Weiss would've supported as team leader, not that –

"What's the matter, Weiss? You look pissed. More than usual, anyway."

And therein lies the root of all her troubles.

"Shut up, Yang," Weiss said. The three of them (Jaune was still back in the sparring room, working through his exercises) were eating lunch in the dining commons. She much would've preferred to eat alone without the presence of her insipid teammates, but Glynda had been adamant ("Miss Weiss, how are you to improve relations with your team if you don't even talk to them?"). The cafeteria was a noisy, dirty place, made doubly so by those new arrivals from the other kingdoms. A more uncouth lot she couldn't have asked for. At least Vale citizens knew the basics of etiquette – or at least a modicum of the basics. At the table beside them, there was a _Faunus_ gripping a fork with his _tail_! Weiss found her appetite gone as surely as if it had fallen off a cliff.

"It's a team captain's duty to look after her teammates," Yang said through a mouthful of food. "Please, tell me of your woes."

"That duel didn't count," Weiss snapped. "You _cheated_! What kind of person kicks dirt into someone's face?"

"All's fair in love and war, girl, and this ain't love."

"I demand a rematch."

"Sorry, my schedule's full training for the tournament," Yang said smugly. "Blake and I have a lot to work out."

"I'll bet you do," Weiss said under her breath.

Why, oh why, did she have to get stuck with this team? At first, she had been ecstatic. Yang and Blake were two of the most formidable fighters in their year. Weiss was sure their team would be equally top-tier, never mind that they got stuck with Jaune, who, as a cruel practical joke, Ozpin had decided to appoint as team leader. But such an obstacle was minor when their team had three such dazzling students.

She realized she had been wrong on their very first team exercise: getting red sap from the Forever Fall. It was impossible to pinpoint the exact moment things went awry. It had started with Jaune (of course), then propagated to Blake, then spread to Yang, and finally to Weiss herself, and it had ended with them covered in sticky red sap running from a forest's worth of wasps. The swelling took a week to die down. It had taken another month for the sweet syrupy smell to vanish from her clothes, and it would likely take another decade for the rest of the school to stop laughing. The most irritating thing to realize was that part of it was probably her own fault.

(But most of it was Yang's.)

"So you're the Schnee heiress, huh?"

Weiss blinked, and she was no longer in the red forest but back in the cafeteria, with her tray untouched and an unknown girl standing over her.

"Do I know you?" she snapped. She was used to students "befriending" her in the hopes that she would be generous with her money. If there was one positive thing about her teammates, it was that none of them cared about the Schnee name.

The girl smiled. She was of average height, though Weiss got the impression she was shorter than she was. Her hair was so red as to almost be black – and messy, Weiss noticed with distaste, as if she had just gotten out of bed – cut boyishly at the neck and swept over the right side of her face. There was something about her smile that reminded Weiss of Winter, even though the two of them could not have been further apart – a familiar smile, a warm smile, the smile of a sister not older but younger. The girl peered at Weiss with a pair of silver eyes so innocent and _cute_ that Weiss was seized with an impulse to reach out and pat her head, before she recognized her uniform: black jacket over a checked skirt, the uniform of Haven.

"We're not telling you anything," Weiss said. "Go spy on someone else."

"You're just as I expected," the girl said with a giggle.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The girl turned to Blake. "I'm Ruby!"

Blake glanced up. "Do we know each other – "

She was interrupted by Yang standing up and seizing the girl by the shoulders. The girl yelped. Yang's fingers dug into the fabric of the girl's clothes, tendons stark with the force of her grip, as if she were trying to break a steel bar in two, yet Yang's expression was not one of anger but joy, so eager, so concentrated, that for a moment Weiss forgot her animosity and was captivated by the intensity of that smile, like looking directly into the sun.

"What's your last name?" Yang demanded.

"Torch," the girl said. "Ruby…Torch. Please, you're hurting me."

Yang let go. The girl dropped to the floor, massaging her shoulders, looking at Yang with an equal mix of vehemence and surprise. But Yang had returned to her seat, shoulders slumped, staring at the spot on the table where her tray used to be – in her haste she had flung it across the room, scattering a trail of milk and tomato sauce. Weiss opened her mouth to berate her ("What do you think you're doing, laying hands on someone from another school? Do you have _any_ idea of the consequences…") but Yang's expression was so disappointed Weiss didn't have it in her. It was like watching a match being struck and, just as quickly, snuffed out.

"Sorry," Yang said in a hollow voice. "I thought you were someone else."

"Well…" Ruby's voice trailed off. She seemed to be figuring out how to respond.

"Please forgive my teammate," Weiss cut in. She gave her most pleasant smile. "She's emotionally immature and often acts on impulse. I'm terribly sorry. Please, don't let her actions reflect our team or our school." Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Yang, who didn't even seem to hear her. Weiss continued, "I believe you had some business with Blake?"

"That's right!" Ruby said, turning back to Blake. "I came here to talk with you."

"I think Yang's not the only person mistaking someone for someone else."

"You've forgotten me!" Ruby said, feigning doe-eyed distress, and Weiss was once again seized with a strange desire to hug her. "Is that how you speak to an old friend? Don't you remember back in the day with you, me, and Mercury?"

Blake went rigid. "I…see," she said slowly, setting down her knife. Her lips pursed to a thin, ashen line. That expression on a normal person would be fear – but Blake was Blake, Weiss thought. Perhaps that was her happy face. Certainly it was novel to see something besides complete apathy. Weiss was more surprised to know Blake had friends. In her childhood, it seems, Blake had been less…Blake-like. Or perhaps opposites attract, she thought wryly, looking from one girl to the other.

"Here," Ruby said, handing Blake a sheet of paper. "We're meeting up again at this restaurant. Remember to bring all our toys!"

With a wave, she walked off, and Weiss noticed for the first time the weapon hanging across Ruby's hip: a sleek, compact rifle whose handle bore signs of polish – and of use. "Strange friends you have," Weiss said to Blake, who was staring at the girl's retreating figure as if looking at an army of Grimm. With a shake of her head, Blake picked up her tray.

"I'm done. I won't be at afternoon classes," she said.

"That's our team practice session with Glynda!" Weiss yelled. "How can you miss that with the tournament so close?"

"I'm done also," Yang said, standing up.

"Please tell me you'll at least be at the training session," Weiss said with a groan. "Don't let me get stuck with Jaune again."

Watching her teammates leave without another word to her or each other, Weiss sank her head into her hands. Why, oh why, did she have to get stuck with _this_ team?

* * *

The shop sat tucked away at the end of the street. Compared to the rest of the city, this part of town was quiet, with little of the attractions that drew tourists. Who comes to the Vytal Festival to read books? But it was a cozy little shop built of brick and mantle wood, its windows freshly washed, behind which displayed the latest bestsellers alongside rare, dog-eared classics. "Every book under the sun," the store's sign proclaimed. Situated next door was a coffee shop, filling Ruby's head with the scent of cinnamon and caramel as she opened the door to Tukson's Book Trade.

Inside was brightly-lit. Rows of bookshelves filled the space the size of a living room, barely leaving room to walk, but despite the crampedness, everything was ordered: not a book littered the floor, and each shelf had been marked "Literature" or "Romance" or "History" with a subtitle to consult the owner to see more stock. Ruby rang the bell on the counter. Neo idled near the entrance, peeking through the windows. "Just a minute," a voice called from the backroom, and presently emerged a tall, strongly-built man with prominent sideburns, holding a stack of books in each hand.

"Welcome to Tukson's Book Trade, home to every book under the sun," he said, setting the stacks to one side. He glanced at them, and something in their carriage must've told him they were no regular customers. "How…may I help you?"

"I'm looking for Edison's _Engineering Dynamics of Dust Smithing,_ third edition."

He raised an eyebrow. "That's pretty advanced stuff. Haven must be ahead of the curve."

"Just me," Ruby said, picking at her sleeve. The Haven Uniform was useful, but it was also a bland, unimaginative thing; she longed for the comfort of her cloak and hood. Tukson returned to the back room and emerged again carrying a heavy, leather-bound tome with no jacket cover. Though old, the book was in excellent shape; the spine was newer than the covers, with a faint smudge of glue showing beneath.

"You've restored it?"

"Books like these are too rare to be allowed to fall apart," Tukson said with a touch of pride. "Kids these days – no offense – think that they can get any information they want through their Scrolls. Well, you might get the text, but books like this have something else. This copy was in the original printing, almost eighty years ago. Think of how many people read it before you! And imagine how many will read it after. Everyone gets something a little different from a book, and everyone leaves behind a little bit of themselves in its pages. _That's_ not something you can get with a Scroll."

"I never thought about it that way," Ruby said, laughing. "How much?"

"Three hundred lien."

"Expensive." Ruby turned it over in her hands, running a finger along its spine. "I'd much rather just take it."

The lights dimmed. There was a _click_ as Neo locked the door. The smile fell from Tukson's face. He looked on, unsurprised.

"You're Roman's people," he said flatly. There lingered a note of sadness in his voice. "You kids get younger every year."

"Then you know what we want."

"I've done nothing."

Ruby shook her head. "Two packed bags and a ticket out of Vale say otherwise. Vacuo, was it?"

Tukson said nothing.

"The White Fang doesn't like its members bailing out on them. You're disappointing a lot of your friends." Ruby leaned over the counter, propping up her head against her fist. "We're family! Want kind of brother abandons his family? You know our methods. Are you going to do this the easy way or the hard way?"

"The hard way," Tukson snarled, and sprang at them.

Ruby ducked under his claw swipes. As he sailed by, she struck his stomach with the handle of her scythe; he gasped but refused to go down. He lunged at her again. Neo stepped in, and there was a sharp crack, and Tukson was on the floor, groaning, clutching his arm bent at a right angle. Ruby held Crescent Rose to his throat.

"Please," he choked out. "I swear I won't betray the White Fang. I just wanted out. All I ever wanted was to sell books. I'm no criminal."

Ruby gazed steadily at him. Roman had been wrong; it never got any easier, and perhaps it wasn't meant to. Tukson shut his eyes. Blood pooled at his elbow, black in the dimness. Neo crouched down, her grin as curved as a butcher's blade, an inch of naked steel glittering from her umbrella handle. Tukson had joined the White Fang over a decade ago, when it was still a non-violent Faunus-rights group. The recent change in leadership left many former members disillusioned. Most of them dropped out. Tukson had tried to do so too late.

"You are not to leave the city under any circumstances," Ruby said at last. Neo gave a disappointed pout.

"I swear."

"You are also to pay a weekly dividend of two hundred lien, starting tomorrow. An agent will come in the morning to pick it up."

"I will."

"If we get the slightest rumor that you have gone to the police, you will die." Ruby removed the scythe from his neck. "This is your first and last warning."

"Thank you," he gasped.

"Let's go, Neo."

With a jangle of bells, Ruby walked into the sunlight once more.


	5. Chess Pieces

A/N: Sorry for the delay. I wanted to wait for S3 to finish before continuing, in case my story conflicts with some last-minute changes in canon. What an ending that was! The show went in a completely different direction than I expected.

Chapter Five: Chess Pieces

What is worth a hundred lives?

Blake turned over the flash drive in her hands, watching her reflection across its surface. Two inches by four inches by one half-inch. Such a small thing to stake the future of the world on. In it contained her life for the last six months – not that silly school life her schoolmates pestered her with, but her _real_ life, her real job, more important than any other. In her hands she held the key to death and peace. Is one worth the other?

The sunlight blinded her as she left the hallways of Beacon. On the street, a hundred scents assaulted her – food, flowers, perfume, garbage, smoke, and, above all else, _sweat_. Her ears cowered from the din. Already she missed the quiet of her dorm. Vale at lunchtime had always been a sea of humans, but during the Vytal festival the sea had turned into an ocean. The heat of them made her skin prickle. Everywhere she looked there were people – and Faunus, city-bred Faunus who had never known starvation or slavery. She hated them and envied them. Animals raised in a cage their entire lives were blind to the bars. She longed to take off her ribbon and enjoy the breeze against her fur, but that would be too hasty, too hasty. Her disguise had time yet.

She made sure to arrive at the restaurant early, but to her surprise the red-haired girl – Ruby Torch, she had called herself, though no doubt that was an alias – was already there, waving at her. Next to her sat a second girl wearing a white-and-pink jacket, eating a bowl of ice cream of similar color.

"Where's Mercury?" Blake said sharply.

Ruby waved her hand. "You answer to us now. This is Neo. She's just here for the food."

Blake sat down. _You answer to us now_. She had never liked Mercury, but she had known him, could control him, to a degree. These two were unknowns.

"Nights are getting long," she said.

"And sparrows…er, fly south, or something." Ruby groaned. "I forgot the countersign. But come on, we're not lying to you, alright? You can trust us."

Certainly Ruby looked trustworthy. She had a tomboy's hair and a tomboy's manner, a child's bright eyes and a child's easy-going smile. She was young – no older than fifteen, though Blake would mark her a year or two younger. Could a child be capable of deception? The answer was _yes_ either way. Disarmingly, Ruby had a habit of tilting her head when looking at you, oddly reminiscent of a puppy. If Blake were meeting her for the first time with no knowledge of the history between them, she would think Ruby was the daughter of a well-to-do family, naïve and spoiled. If it weren't for her uniform and the weapon strung across her hip, Blake would not have believed she was a fighter at all.

"I trust you," Blake said.

Because no double agent would be stupid enough to only remember half a cipher.

"Great!" Ruby clapped her hands. "Do you have it?"

Blake took out the flash drive and laid it on the table.

"Everything I've gathered in the last six months are in here."

The rectangular piece of metal and circuitry represented the greatest security breach in the history of Vale. Beacon, like other training academies in other kingdoms, was notorious for its security. Not even family members could get in without an extensive background check, and the only people who had free access to the school were the staff and students; it had taken years of behind-the-scenes work – fake histories, background wipes, blackmailed recommendations – to get Blake to where she was today. Beacon's security, Blake suspected, was also the reason why the White Fang was making its move now, during the Vytal Festival, when security measures were forced to relax to accommodate the influx of visitors.

"Excellent," Ruby said, pocketing it. She turned to Blake with eager eyes. "Tell me about them."

"Ozpin has something big planned. He keeps it in the basement – "

"No, no, I meant tell me about your _team_."

Blake looked at her questioningly. "They don't suspect me at all. Nobody even knows I'm a Faunus."

Ruby gave an exasperated sigh. "I mean tell me about your teammates! What are they like? What do you do every day?"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"You've been together for half a year! What's school like? I heard every team sleeps together in the same room. Do you stay up late every night talking? Like a slumber party! Oh, it sounds like so much fun! All I have is Neo – I didn't mean it like that, Neo. _Of course_ I love you. But school! There's so many people there, how do you remember everybody's names? Is it true you fought Grimm as part of your initiation? What are your teachers like? What do you _do_ all day? "

This was a test, Blake decided. Some sort of test to gauge how effective she was in her environment, how aware she was of everything in the academy. "I've been with my team for five months and three weeks," she said. "The first week we didn't get assigned teams yet. We never stay up late talking. My teammates argue a lot. I stay out of it. I don't know many students. I keep as low a profile as possible. We fought Grimm in the Emerald Forest as part of our initiation. Our teachers are competent. Their credentials check out. I study alone for a few hours every day." And then, on an impulse so sudden Blake wasn't even aware of saying it until after the fact: "I don't have any friends."

Was that pity in Ruby's gaze?

"I'm not sure how this pertains to my job," Blake said.

Ruby rested her chin in her palm, looking at her with doleful eyes.

"Aren't you lonely?"

Of course. Loneliness was the natural state for her, the preferable state. In the kingdoms outside Remnant, Blake had learned the value of silence. She remembered starvation (not hunger but starvation), a sensation like chains coiled around her stomach, and she remembered thirst (oh she will never forget the thirst). How can any child learn to be joyful under such circumstances? The strange one here is not me, Blake thought, looking at Ruby's clear silver eyes. It's you and people like you – like Yang, like Nora.

"I don't see how this pertains to my job," she said at last. "Now, let me ask you a question, if you don't mind. What's Roman planning?"

For the first time, the girl at Ruby's side – Neo, Ruby had said – looked up from her ice cream. Blake noticed with some surprise that she had one pink eye and one brown eye. Heterochromia wasn't uncommon among Faunus, but it was uncommon among humans. Neo rested her spoon against the bowl, scrutinizing Blake as if just realizing she existed; Neo, too, looked young, but compared to Ruby her eyes held no warmth. She had the half-interested gaze of a child hovering over an ant, magnifying glass in hand, wondering how crisply an insect will burn.

The effect was entirely ruined by the ice cream mustache over her lip.

Ruby laughed and wiped it off with a napkin. "I don't know," she said, turning back to Blake.

"I'm risking my life. I think I have some right to know where my information's going."

"I really don't know," Ruby said petulantly. "He never tells me anything! Or anyone, actually. It's _infuriating_."

"How many people will people die?"

Ruby looked at her helplessly.

"Thank you," Blake said, standing up.

Even if Blake didn't believe her, she knew she could not press the matter further. Against Mercury, she could appeal to his arrogance. Mercury was all too willing to brag. _Roman trusts you, Mercury. Surely he's said something to his right-hand man?_ But these two…the White Fang did not take kindly to questions even from its own subordinates. Especially from its own subordinates. Her allies were even more dangerous than her enemies. Neo grinned at her, fingers bending back the handle of her spoon until the metal turned white and snapped in two. Blake suppressed a shudder; she was under no illusion that she was anything but a pawn to them, just as they were nothing but pawns to Roman. Above all else, she did not trust Ruby's façade.

Peel back enough wool, and inside every sheep you find a wolf.

* * *

There exist some things men are not supposed to know, Roman thought, leaning back in his chair. In front of him, the Scroll's screen flickered, displaying the decrypted files the Faunus girl had downloaded. Ozpin was certainly…thorough. But did anybody need to know about the budding relationship between Professor Port and Professor Peach? Or the incredibly interesting soufflé Ozpin ate for lunch? Or Glynda's measurements?

But some diamonds were buried inside all that junk. The school's floor plans, for example. And the yet-unannounced alliance with Atlas. The alliance alone would fetch a princely sum from investors, but you didn't become the biggest criminal mastermind in the kingdom without some _ambition_.

He flicked through the Scroll's pages, back to the section marked _Project Autumn_. Most of the page was an unintelligible mess of computer code; his techs _still_ hadn't been able decrypt it, what the hell was he paying those idiots for? But such an advanced level of encryption, unseen in any other section, told him everything he wanted to know even without the broken, half-decoded phrases: _Subject comatose…experimental Aura technology…transfer imminent…destructive power on an unheard-of scale…_

Ozpin was creating a weapon.

Roman wanted it.

He hadn't thought the pale old geezer had it in him. Ozpin had always been yellow – "peace-loving," in his own words. For someone who headed the biggest superweapon factory in the world, Ozpin was loathe to use them. No doubt Ironwood had a hand in all this. Now there was a man after Roman's own heart. Atlas had been conducting top-secret Aura research for the last decade, with a focus toward its military applications. This _Autumn_ project marked the first time Atlas had sought help from outside the kingdom. But what did Vale have to offer to Remnant's premier technological kingdom? More importantly, what made Ozpin go against a lifetime of pacifism?

Roman took a drag of his cigar, watching the smoke curl towards the ceiling. Such questions were secondary to the ultimate end. You didn't need to know a car's history before jacking it for a joyride. But there was another end here, one more nebulous and slippery to handle.

He flicked through the Scroll until he came to the student roster. Rows of smiling faces greeted him. An innocent-enough looking bunch, for kids who could kill you a hundred ways before you've even had your morning coffee. Kids these days just keep getting weirder. His gaze rested on a lilac-eyed girl with blond hair spilling past her shoulders, whom he had recognized instantly from the sea of faces before ever reading the name printed beneath: _Yang Xiao Long_.

So _she_ also attended Beacon. He didn't know why he was surprised. Like parents, like daughter. It was even conceivable that Yang and Ruby had already met. But they would, of course, have no idea of their own relationship. If Roman believed in fate, he would've called it, well, fate. But he didn't, of course. Roman believed in luck, coincidences, opportunities – and in a man's ability to seize those opportunities when the time came. But opportunities and disasters are all too similar at their outset, eager to flip between each other at the slightest touch, and any misstep might turn them all on the wrong path forever.

Perhaps it's better to let sleeping Ursas lie.

In any case, his course of action was clear. He stood up, flicking his cigar into the trash can. He was the mastermind, rarely the overseer; he left the managerial tasks to people more boring than he was. But there were some jobs too important to be left to brownnosers like Mercury. If you want to get a job done right – truly right, without the possibility of failure, where the ability to follow orders simply wasn't enough, because the plan itself wasn't as important as the ability to improvise – you gotta do it yourself.

It was time to grace the city of Vale with his presence once more.

Junior would be simply _delighted_.


	6. Ships in the Night

Chapter Six: Ships in the Night

There was something in the rush of speed, the wind whipping her hair, the thrum of the motorcycle between her legs. In the emptiness of night, without pesky cars or police, Yang roared across the concrete with the shattered moon above and the quickening pulse within. She veered across a corner as sharply as she could, shoulder almost touching the ground, and it was a pointless risk, she knew (as her father was so fond of telling her), when the slightest pressure on the wrong side of the steering wheel would send her screaming into the asphalt. But that was precisely why Yang liked it. There was thrill in battle, in the sweetness of a Grimm's claws piercing your skin or another student's fist smashing your jaw; there lay something equally animalistic in pure, unadulterated speed.

So it was with regret that she dismounted her bike in front of Junior's club. The club was situated in a bad part of town, streets littered with trash, walls overrun with mildew. The massive neon sign hanging over the doorway had several letters blacked out. Coupled with the recent crime wave and the danger of stepping outside at night, Yang was unsurprised to see that business wasn't exactly booming. From within she heard techno music, a fast, thrumming beat that sent her blood boiling. The fools had locked the door.

As if that would stop her.

Ember Celica slid over her fists. She arched her arm back, relishing in the moment before the kill – and swung.

The door exploded.

"Guess who's back?" she called. The blinding flash of strobe lights greeted her. The club interior was a monochrome world, a massive room bare of all except a bar at the front and a dance stage at its center. The stage was surrounded by four glass pillars that made a wonderful tinkling noise when they shattered. Yang was greeted by the full force of the music that washed over her in a physical wave of sound, marred only by the arrhythmic clicks of a dozen guns cocking.

"Stop, stop! Nobody shoot!"

Junior emerged from the crowd of his henchman. Nervously, he straightened his tie. "Blondie! You're here…why?"

Yang grinned. "You still owe me a drink."

Junior bent down next to her, whispering, "Look, this really isn't a good time. _Please_ leave. Any other time except tonight – "

"What's the holdup, Junior?"

The voice came from the bar. An orange-haired man wearing a white tuxedo set down his wineglass, annoyance written across his features. When he turned to Yang, a flicker of recognition seemed to pass through his eyes, a momentary look of surprise that overwrote his annoyed expression, but of course she had never seen him before – she'd remember that bowler hat anywhere. But she _had_ seen the girl sitting next to him, a red-haired, silver-eyed girl, drinking a can of soda.

"Ruby?"

Ruby turned around, eyes wide. "You're the girl who assaulted me!"

"She did what?" the man next to her roared.

"I already said I was sorry," Yang said.

"Junior, who is this?"

"Sorry, boss, Blondie's not one of our regulars – "

"I _have_ a name, you know. I'm Yang. Who are you?"

"You don't get to ask questions. _I_ get to ask the questions."

"He's my boss," Junior whispered. "You do _not_ want to make him angry."

"What's a student from Haven doing at this place?" Yang asked, turning to Ruby.

"That's what I should be asking you," the orange-haired man said. "Aren't you a little young to be drinking?"

"That's what _I_ told her," Junior muttered.

"I'm visiting my Dad!" Ruby said. "Please excuse his rudeness. He's not good with people – "

"I am _perfectly fine_ with people."

" – you remember Blake, our friend? Yang's on her team."

"You two are _related_?"

"You don't see the resemblance?" the man said dryly.

"Why is a club in Vale under the control of someone from Haven?" Yang said suspiciously.

The orange-haired man sighed. He took a drag of his cigar, then ground it against the tabletop.

"I got business ventures all over the world, kid. It's called asset allocation. It's my first visit to Vale in quite a while, and here I was, hoping to enjoy a nice, relaxing evening, until _you_ showed up. Since you seem to be Ruby's friend, I'll refrain from ordering you shot. I'll even give you my name: _sir_. But please, make your business quick. Or you'll be heading back to Beacon in a body bag."

"Ask Junior the last time he tried to do that," Yang said with a smirk. She took a seat at the counter. "Lucky for you, I'm just here for a drink. Strawberry Sunrise, no ice. On Junior, of course."

Truthfully, Yang had come to ask Junior for information, but she got the feeling she wouldn't get much out of him tonight. He stood like a butler at the orange-haired man's side, serving him drinks, laughing at his comments, relaying orders to his henchmen, and it was strange to see one of the most powerful men in Vale, usually so boisterous, look terrified. There was much more here than what she was being told. Especially since it was an open secret that Junior had a hand in several less-than-savory enterprises. Who was that orange-haired man? And, for that matter, who was his "daughter?"

The bartender handed Yang her drink. She took a sip and was immediately annoyed to realize she had been given the non-alcoholic version, but the bartender was on the other side of the bar now, tending to the orange-haired man, and in any case the drink was sweeter this way, like biting into a strawberry to find a solid sugar core beneath. Around the room Junior's men were sweeping the floor, putting away the stereos, trying to patch up the broken door through which the night peeked, cold and dark as a Grimm's fur. Yang closed her eyes. The music had strayed from the techno beat to a slow, schmaltzy tune that reminded her of apples, of Summer, of that small island lost tenderly in the sea.

"So? What happened?"

Yang blinked. Ruby had wormed her way next to her, looking up at her eagerly.

"Huh?"

"Between Junior and you," Ruby said. "I mean, they tried to shoot you when you came in! And you blew the door open! That was amazing!"

"I trashed the place last time I came here," Yang said, absentmindedly stirring her Strawberry Sunrise. Seeing the redhead far from satisfied, Yang launched into the story of her previous visit, her interrogation of Junior, her fight with his henchmen and the Miltia twins that culminated in a fight with Junior himself, ending with the destruction of the bar. Some part of her, she reflected, had been yearning for an audience. It was easy to talk under the atmosphere of a bar – albeit an empty one – with a drink in hand and music that provided a soundtrack: the slow romantic song transitioning to a quick dance beat ending in frenetic electronica. Ruby listened with rapt attention. By the end, she was vibrating in her seat.

"You're so cool!"

"It was nothing," Yang said, trying not to feel toopleased with herself.

"Let me see your weapons!" Ruby said, and before Yang could answer she had taken Yang's hands into her own. Her touch was soft and spiderlike and surprisingly intimate; Yang flushed, but Ruby did not seem aware. She studied the pair of bracelets along Yang's arms, and her gaze was not the muddied gaze of the amateur but the purposeful gaze of the professional, intent and focused as her fingers danced along Ember Cilica's contours.

At last she seemed satisfied, releasing Yang's hands. "A lot of power," she said with an approving nod. "They use 10-gauge shells, right? The recoil must be killer."

"You get used to it."

"Beacon sounds like so much fun," Ruby said with a sigh. She rested her head against the counter, looking at Yang sideways. "I wish I could go there."

"What's Haven like?"

"Er…it's – uh, it's boring, really, not worth mentioning." Ruby turned away, clearing her throat. "I mean, it's just typical school stuff. Not fun at all. Nothing like Beacon."

"I see."

There it was again – something hidden, or at least not the entire truth. Ruby was a terrible liar. Yang took another drink of her Strawberry Sunrise, only to find it empty. She flagged the bartender. He was nowhere to be found. Sometime during her story, Junior and the orange-haired man had also retired, leaving only a few tired-looking henchmen finishing up the last of the cleanup. The DJ was also gone; there was only silence, silence and a heaviness in the pit of Yang's stomach that had nothing to do with the drink.

"Who did I remind you of?" Ruby asked. "When we first met, I mean."

A shadow. A dream. A hope.

"Nobody," Yang said, and it was perhaps the most accurate description of all.

Ruby peered at her. She waited, sitting cross-legged on the barstool with a patient smile on her face – could someone be called smiling if that was her default expression? So trusting, so full of hope, a sailor setting off for sunset seas. And Yang, too, continued to wait; Ruby and her father were not the only ones privileged to secrets. What right had Ruby to expect her to bare her soul? Yang tapped her fingers against the glass, _clink clink clink_ , an orchestra in the silence, and she had finished _Wings_ and the chorus of _Gold_ before she relented at last.

"I'm looking for someone. Two people, actually. My mother. And my sister."

Yang turned away, and that was that.

She fingered her scroll in the pocket of her jacket. It contained the only picture of her mother that she knew, not even a portrait but a stray photograph: a long-haired woman caught mid-flight, face turned away from the camera. If Yang searched her memories she thought she could remember a face, a voice, a hand, but even those fleeting memories shifted around each other and she wasn't sure if it was her own face, her father's voice, Summer's hand. Why did she leave? Was Yang so defective a child that she drove away the one person in the world who should've loved her most?

Of her sister, she knew even less: a baby lost at birth, whose mother – the only person who might've known how or why – was dead. Her existence had only been known to Yang on the night before Yang left for Beacon, when her father drank too much celebratory wine and spoke of events he had locked tight inside his heart. She would be fifteen now. Too young to attend a higher training academy like Beacon or Haven, assuming she even wanted to be a huntress (but in this Yang was sure; no sister of hers, no child of Taiyang and Summer, would ever want to be anything else), assuming she was even alive (in this Yang was less sure). Somewhere in the world lay her sister or her sister's bones. Yang had nothing to guide her save a name, given to a fragment of the wind:

 _Ruby Rose._

"I'm leaving," Yang said. She stood up, ignoring Ruby's protests. Desperately she wanted the rush of the night air against her face, the roar of the engine between her legs. It was stupid of her to say something to a stranger – worse than a stranger, an opponent. Why did she do it? She wanted to go back to the dorms. It was nearing two o'clock. She had not expected to stay so long.

"Take me with you."

Yang froze. "What?"

"You're going back to Beacon, right? My hotel's on the way." Ruby linked an arm around hers, smiling up at her. "You won't leave me to walk these dangerous streets alone at night?"

I have better things to do, Yang thought, but when she looked at Ruby's face the idea of denying so simple a request was impossible. As long as it was on the way…and there was such a thing called courtesy.

"As long as you have your will written," Yang said. "No insurance for nausea, vomiting, or loss of life."

The night blinded her after the brightness of the club. Yang pulled her collar up, wishing she had worn leggings; winter had come early after a short fall. The metal of her motorcycle was cold as ice. Behind her, she felt Ruby get on, a small ball of warmth pressed against her back, arms wrapped around her waist. Yang could not remember the last time she took on a passenger; certainly, she thought with pride, no passenger ever asked for a second ride. She revved the engine. The motorcycle sang to life beneath her. Headlights cut a swathe of light in the darkness. Above them the shattered pieces of the moon were swallowed by a sky without stars.

Yang closed her eyes, listening to the purr of her steed, and, for an instant, the beating of a heart that was not her own.

"Hold on tight."


	7. The Thief and the Warrior

Chapter 7: The Thief and the Warrior

"She's pretty good, isn't she?" Ruby said.

Neo yawned.

"Not bad," Emerald said. "But nothing special."

Below them, in the arena, Pyrhha Nikos finished up the last of Team CRDL. Three were already down, lying in various stages of incapacitation. Only the leader was left, dressed in full plate mail, swinging a mace larger than his own head. He charged forward, bringing his mace down with both hands in a crushing, savage blow that would've annihilated Pyrhha had she not easily dodged it and smashed her shield into his face. Ruby almost felt sorry for Cardin; the last two tries hadn't worked, so why had he expected the third to? But there was something to be said for determination, she supposed, as Cardin stood up again, ready for a fourth attempt. Pyrhha knocked the mace out of his hands. He stared dumbly down at the space where it used to be. She struck him six times more times in the chest, spear point meeting plate mail in a rapid scale of metallic _clinks_ , culminating with a dual-handed spear thrust that launched him backwards into the wall. With a groan, he fell forward and lay still.

"Match over!"

The teacher walked forward. She spoke with Pyrhha before turning to the rest of the audience.

"We have time for one more sparring match. Any volunteers? Miss Belladonna? You've been rather – "

"Ooo, pick me, pick me!" Ruby raised her hand, leaning over the railing. "I'll do it! Pick me!"

"We're _trying_ to keep a low profile," Emerald hissed.

"Ruby, is it?" Goodwitch said, adjusting her glasses. "Very well."

Ruby leapt down from the seats, Crescent Rose already in her hands. In a series of clicks, it extended to its full length, taller than she was, blood-red blade catching the gleam of sunlight. She grinned. The thrill was there again, a rush of blood that heightened her senses until the world popped with color; she could see each stray stitch on Goodwitch's dress, smell last night's rain rising from the dirt, hear her own heartbeat like cymbals in her chest. Effortlessly, she twirled Crescent Rose in her hands, resting it over one shoulder.

"I've heard about you," she said to Pyrrha. "You're the four-time winner of the Mistral regionals! I was hoping we'd come across each other in the tournament."

"Eh- _hem_ ," Goodwitch coughed. "I'm afraid Miss Nikos has just finished a match. I recommend you choose another partner."

"What!"

"No, it's fine," Pyrrha said hastily. "I'd be happy to oblige."

"Alright!"

Goodwitch sighed, rubbing her temples. "Very well. Just…try not to get carried away."

They took their positions on opposite sides of the arena. Distance was approximately three hundred feet, Ruby judged, which would be easy to close, both for her and her opponent. Pyrrha's weapons were quick and flexible, able to attack and defend at the same time (Ruby would've love the opportunity to study them, and she had to clear that distraction with a shake of her head), but they lacked the pure destructive power of Ruby's two-handed scythe. In her peripheral vision, Ruby saw Neo lean forward with her chin against the railing, and it was a toss-up whether she wanted Ruby to win or lose. Next to her, Emerald was mouthing words that looked suspiciously like _low profile_.

The gong sounded.

Before the reverberations left her ears, Ruby vanished in a swirl of rose petals. Pyrrha's eyes widened in surprise, but still she managed to bring her shield up in time. Crescent Rose crashed against it with a force that sent tremors along Ruby's arms. Ruby followed through with two more strikes, but even before she lifted her scythe she knew it would be fruitless; the element of surprise was lost. Pyrrha blocked them easily. Before Pyrhha could retaliate, Ruby leapt back, scythe held in a guard position.

She had expected Pyrhha to rush at her. She had not expect Pyrhha to throw her shield, a whistling blur of razor-sharp metal that could've severed her head from her neck. Ruby knocked it aside, and, sure enough, Pyrrha followed behind it, spear already thrust forward. Ruby ducked under it, only to meet Pyrrha's knee-strike across her face. Blood welled in her mouth. Blindly, Ruby lashed out with her scythe, expecting to hit nothing, and she didn't. But it bought her enough time. When the stars left her head, Pyrrha was twenty feet away, watching her closely, shield already back on her arm.

Ruby spat out the blood. She had lost the opening gambit, but the game was far from over.

She fired off three shots. The bullets bounced harmlessly off Pyrrha's shield, a momentary distraction. Ruby appeared behind her, scythe raised for a decapitation. Pyrrha spun around. Ruby pulled the trigger. The recoil propelled Crescent Rose into a downward swing, blade meeting shield in a high, pure ringing so beautiful Ruby mourned the silence that followed. Pyrrha grunted. Her feet sank an inch into the dirt. She lunged with her spear, but Ruby had disappeared again, this time coming from her right. The most terrifying thing about the Huntress, Ruby thought, was her efficiency. Pyrhha had the discipline of a solder, never making a wasted movement, each attack and counter as precise as the second and minute hands of a clock. No matter which direction Ruby struck from, Pyrrha met her with calculated precision; no matter how much strength she put into her blows, Pyrrha met her with equal force and, immediately after, a counter-strike of her own. In school, Ruby had heard, Pyrrha was supposed to be quite a nice girl, but you wouldn't know that from the battlefield. She bore the grim, unchanging expression of a machine.

Yet even without the Aura indicators, Ruby knew Pyrrha was tiring. Her strikes came a half-second slower than before, her blocks giving inches more. Ruby herself was tiring. One way or another, the battle would end soon.

Ruby braced Crescent Rose's hilt under her arm, blade pointed upwards, willing herself to go faster, faster, faster, flitting around Pyrrha with the evanescence of petals in a blizzard. When at last she struck, Crescent Rose bore the full revolution of her body. Pyrrha skidded backwards along the dirt. But her shield held. Ruby spun on the ball of her foot, scythe-blade slashing from the opposite side, and I've got her, she thought, I've got her for sure this time, not even Pyrrha is fast enough to defend against that, and, sure enough, Pyrrha's eyes widened for the second time that fight, a look of defeat – no, not quite defeat, something hard still glittered in those eyes, and on the periphery of feeling, more impression than vision, Ruby caught the golden blur of Pyrrha's spear darting towards her, victory at any cost, and Ruby took a moment to relish the sheer unexpectedness of it, like finding a knife in your morning cereal, and the only question that remained was which weapon was faster…

"Match over!"

Ruby felt her body freeze. Something lifted her into the air, dangling like a fish on a hook. In front of her, Pyrrha, too, was suspended, and equally surprised.

"Unfortunately, we are out of time," Goodwitch said. With a flick of her arm, she unceremoniously dumped them onto the ground. "Please return to your teams."

Ruby lay still on the floor, getting her breath back under control, waiting for the adrenaline to wear off. She closed her eyes. In the distance, she heard a roar, a sustained wave of noise that swallowed her and stadium whole, and it took her a second to realize it was the audience cheering. When she opened her eyes, she saw Pyrrha's hand offered towards her.

"Thanks," she said, pulling herself up.

Pyrrha, she was disappointed to see, wasn't as out-of-breath as she was. Endurance was something she would need to work on. Sweat gleamed on Pyrrha's forehead, clear-crystal drops like jewels on olive skin. Dirt streaked across Pyrhha's armor. Ruby's own clothes were in a similar state. Just half a second more, she thought, eyeing the spear slung across Pyrrha's back, and I _definitely_ would've won. Probably.

"A good fight," Pyrrha said, smiling.

"You're as good as they say," Ruby confessed.

"If your team's as strong as you are, I don't fancy facing you in the tournament."

"Oh, no, not even close. I'm the weakest one on my team."

Pyrrha took a step back. Her surprise was a lily out-of-season, Ruby thought: a single-second bloom – a widening of the eyes, a tightening around her jaw, a half-intake of breath – and then, much like on the battlefield, her emotions were once again reigned in.

"I find that difficult to believe."

"Tied for weakest, anyway," Ruby said. "But you really can't compare Neo to anyone else, and Cinder's like ten years older than me."

"I…see."

"I can definitely believe you're the best student in your year, though," Ruby continued. "Oh, don't try to deny it. Everybody knows it. Those weapons of yours are top-notch! Mind if I take a look?" Eagerly, she grasped Pyrrha's left hand, turning it over to reveal the shield strapped to her wrist, smaller now than it had been in battle. Its hue and weight seemed like it was made of bronze, but surely such a flimsy material could not have withstood so many blows from Crescent Rose without a mark. Perhaps the secret lay in the curvature…

Pyrrha laughed, gently extricating her arm. "Another time. My team's calling for me. Perhaps we'll meet each other at the tournament."

"In the finals," Ruby said, grinning.

And next time, she thought, there won't be a Glynda Goodwitch to interrupt us.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the delay, but RL stuff keeps getting in the way. This chapter was actually pre-written months ago.


	8. Lunch and Dinner

Lunch and Dinner

Roman leaned back, pushing away the unfinished remains of his meal. The foie gras had been undercooked, the bluefin several days old, the caviar clearly a substitute. The wine had ostensibly been an eighty-year old terroir vintage, but a single whiff told you it had been made in the last decade. If this was Junior's best, the club's being in the red surprised Roman even less.

"A dinner as disappointing as your conversation," Cinder said.

"Small talk is for people with more words than brains."

Cinder smiled, dabbing at her lips with her napkin. She had ditched the Haven uniform for her regular red dress sequined with gold, an outfit that had drawn no small number of stares when she walked in, that narcissist. Thankfully, the VIP booth was separate from the rest of the club, complete with soundproof walls so Roman didn't have to listen to what passed for music these days. He lit up his cigar and took a long drag. Tobacco helped washed away taste of the dinner. If Cinder had one beneficial quality, it was that, unlike most women, she didn't mind cigars.

"To business, then," he said.

"And here I thought we were enjoying a romantic dinner."

"Trust me, you're the last person I want to romance and this is the last place I want to have dinner."

Cinder raised an eyebrow. "What's there to discuss? Everything is proceeding according to plan."

"Yes, yes, but I want to talk about _afterwards_. Even if things are going smoothly, I find that when it comes time to split the profits, even the clearest minds can get…clouded."

"So petty. I thought better of you, Roman."

"You say that now, but I've been in the business long enough to receive more than my share of last-minute backstabs." He pulled out a piece of paper and laid it on the table. "Currently, we have seventy percent of the kingdom's Dust in our control. After the Grimm attack, Dust prices are expected to jump two thousand percent. We stand to make roughly five-point seven million lien. Since it's _my_ infrastructure and _my_ men we're using, I say it's only fair I get a bigger cut. Seventy-thirty."

Cinder looked at the piece of paper with disdain. "I despise finances."

"Sixty-five thirty-five."

Cinder sighed, shaking her head. "Poor Roman, you never know what a woman wants."

"Maybe because they never tell me," he snapped.

Slowly, lazily, as if she were returning a restaurant receipt, Cinder pushed the piece of paper back at him.

"You can keep your money."

"How unexpectedly generous," Roman said dryly. "Out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose?"

"I want Ruby."

Roman tapped his cigar against the ash tray, black ash flakes scattering over white ceramic. He arched his head and took a drag. Smoke obscured the lights, white-grey tendrils creeping around the two of them like grasping fingers, bathing the room in a dim haze until all that was visible of the woman across from him was a silhouette with smoldering eyes.

Leaning forward, he steepled his fingers.

"I know what you're trying to do. You're giving me a taste of my own medicine. Seventy-thirty? What a joke. Only an idiot would take that. Demand a request so absurd the other side has no choice but to turn it down. It starts you off on the high ground. Negotiation one-oh-one. And now you're trying to turn it around on me." He ground the cigar against the ash tray. "You have zero interest in Ruby."

"Don't I?"

Cinder's smile was _fire_ , so wicked Roman felt it scald his skin. Beneath the table, his fingers tightened around his cane. It was an impossible request she was making, both of them knew it, she might as well as have asked for the sun in her palms, or a fairytale to come to life, or a rose's bloom in the heart of winter. He licked the salt from his lips. If it came down to a fight, he would be incinerated, but you could only take so much from a man…

Cinder laughed, three clear, musical notes that would've been enough to capture the heart of a lesser man. "It was a joke, Roman. Lighten up." She turned her face away from the light, and all he could catch was the bladed edge of her grin. "You can keep your money. Seventy-thirty, you said? Fine with me. I know how much you love your lien."

"What's the catch?"

Cinder waved her hand. "There is no catch."

"I find this a bit too good to be true."

"So it is with fairy tales."

 _So it is with fairy tales._

Cinder seemed to sense his wariness; surely that was the meaning behind her smile, a blend of condescension and amusement with a dash of magnanimity. "Don't think too hard, Roman," she said, patting his shoulder. "You always were lacking in imagination. It's one of your most charming features."

With a final backwards wave, she left the room, leaving Roman pondering in the smoke.

* * *

"You look _adorable_!"

Neo scowled.

Ruby laughed, hugging the smaller girl. Neo pushed her away, nose upturned in an expression that told Ruby _exactly_ what she thought of her new outfit: a black blouse and black skirt, lined with white frills around the collar. Although Neo could wear whatever she wished using her Semblance, such disguises were illusions, capable of being seen through, and no amount of trickery could make a cotton jacket feel like anything else, an especially vexing problem during prolonged, intimate contact – say, during a dance.

It was, Ruby reasoned, as good an excuse as any to dress up Neo.

Ruby lunged for her again, but Neo took a step to the side, and there was a crash, and Ruby found herself on the floor with her arms wrapped around a mannequin.

"We are definitely buying it," Ruby said, picking herself up (along with the mannequin). "You look so cute!"

"Certainly better than that cocktail dress," Emerald said. "Neo doesn't quite have the…figure for that."

Neo's scowl darkened. She crossed her arms and turned away from them, which gave Ruby the opening to jump at her again, arms looped around her shoulders. "And your hair!" she said, nuzzling her cheek against Neo's curls. "I know _just_ the look. It'll be perfect! You'll turn _everybody's_ head at the dance!"

"Yeah, 'cause everyone'll be trying to help out a poor lost child."

Neo spun around, umbrella striking out in a low, whistling arc that missed Emerald's head by inches. Emerald laughed. "Come on, we don't have all day. Unless you want to try on something else?"

Ruby's eyes glittered. "That's not a bad idea. The purple dress over there will look _lovely_ on you…"

Ruby was almost disappointed when Neo immediately assented.

It was midafternoon by the time they left the store. Dark clouds sailed overhead, and the chill in the air brought portent of snow. Vale took no heed of the weather. People walked amongst the stores and cafes and street stands, balancing out the cold with the heat of their movements. The three of them stopped for lunch at an open-air restaurant not far from the school. The place was filled with students, some of whom Ruby had seen before but none of whom she recognized. To her surprise, they seemed to recognize her, and, even more surprisingly, regard her with wariness.

"Everybody's talking about your match with Pyrrha," Emerald said. "Remember what I said about low profile?"

"It was just a sparring match."

"A sparring match against the favorite of the Vytal tournament."

"You're exaggerating," Ruby said with a wave of her hand. "I was just having some fun."

"Show-off."

"A bit," she admitted.

"If anybody starts to dig around for our histories, we're in big trouble."

Ruby stretched out her arms, suppressing a yawn. "Dad's got that covered. Don't worry." Emerald had a tendency to overreact. Despite the chill, Ruby was pleasantly sleepy, surrounded by the lull of chattering students around them. She found a perplexing sense of freedom in doing what everybody else was doing for once. No clandestine meetings, no hidden agendas – they were just three friends eating lunch together after a shopping trip, perhaps enjoying the cancellation of classes caused by the Vytal festival, and afterwards they'd head back to their dorms and relax, or perhaps get some practice in, and when they retire for the night they do so with the full knowledge that when they wake up tomorrow, everything will be as it's always been.

But for the three of them, change was the rule, not the exception.

Ruby rested her chin on her palm, staring up at the sky.

"Haven't you ever wondered what it's like?"

Emerald raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

Ruby gestured vaguely to the space around them. "Don't you ever wonder if we're missing out? They seem to be having so much _fun_! They don't need to worry about their next assignments, or getting hurt, or getting caught – "

"No," Emerald snapped. "I never have and I never will."

Neo looked up curiously at Ruby, then shrugged.

"I guess it's just me," Ruby said with a sigh. "But think about it! You wake up in a dorm – a _dorm_! With other people! And you go to class with all your friends and – "

"What you see here is only a small part of the population," Emerald said darkly. "Vale is the capital of the kingdom, and Beacon is in the richest part of the city. The only people who can be students are those with parents rich enough or well-connected enough to send them here. And not just Beacon – it's the same with every other school in Remnant."

"That's not what I meant – "

"For every student you see here, there are a dozen kids struggling to survive the day. If you want to know a city, look at its rats. Look in the alleyways, the gutters, the hovels. There's your _normal_."

I didn't mean it like that, Ruby said, but even as she opened her mouth she remembered. Four years ago, in Roman's study, she and Roman met a woman and a girl: the woman, refined; the girl…ravenous – a dark-skinned, cyan-haired urchin who fidgeted among Roman's finery like a Beowulf in a Dust shop, and though Cinder was beautiful it was Emerald who had captivated Ruby. She could not have been older than Ruby, yet Ruby instinctively sensed that they lived worlds apart, that dust-flecked skin, those thin arms, that jacket hanging like a blanket on her skeletal frame – and the eyes, Ruby remembered, bloodshot eyes that darted from point to point as if expecting an ambush at any minute. When complimentary biscuits were brought in, Emerald's arm lashed out for the tray, scattering bread crumbs along the carpet as her fingers grasped more biscuits than she could hold, and Ruby watched on, amazed, as Roman made clear the disdain on his face. Cinder had laughed and lain a hand on Emerald's arm, and Emerald had paused, looking around her as if waking from a dream, before she set the tray back down.

"Have you ever starved?" Emerald asked. "Have you ever stolen to put food on your plate? Have you ever been beaten for the crime of trying to survive in a world that doesn't give a damn if you die?"

Ruby looked down at her hands and was ashamed.

"You don't know how good you got it."

Emerald's fingers curled around her glass, and there was a _crack_ , fine as splintering ice, before she jerked her head away. I'm sorry, Ruby started, but Emerald waved her off. In a dull voice, she said, "Forget it. I don't know what came over me."

For the rest of the meal, they ate in silence.


	9. Knight in Crimson Armor

Chapter Nine: Knight in Crimson Armor

The ballroom sat dim and gaudy under the flash of strobe lights. Drapes hung across the ceiling and hugged the walls, bathing the room in a soft, velvet hue. The air stank of perfume. Scattered around the room, students were already mingling in full swing, their laughter underscoring the frenetic pace of electronica.

From the punch bowl, Weiss watched them and despised them.

She felt as if she were twelve again. Under the glitter of chandeliers, she stood by her father's side, face sore from the effort of maintaining her smile as she greeted men and women who spoke to her as if she were not just a child but a simpleton. Kind words, flattering words, and all the while their eyes were as cold as the Dust in her rapier. She had learned to hate crowds. And the students here were poorer but their motives no less transparent.

Idly, Weiss turned her cup in her hands, observing her dull-eyed reflection in the glass. The Vytal tournament started next week. Supposedly, the Beacon Dance was one final opportunity for students from the schools to relax before they tried to kill each other, to remind everyone that the entire thing was a friendly competition. Did anybody actually believe it? Weiss would rather be fighting other students than her boredom. On the far wall, the clock struck ten. Only thirty minutes had passed. It might as well as have been thirty lifetimes. Yang was still on reception duty. Blake had vanished the moment the dance started. Jaune had wandered over to Pyrrha's team. Neptune was lost among a crowd of girls. So Weiss had been left to herself, sitting in the shadow of drapes in her most beautiful silver dress, and she was – perhaps, maybe, just a little bit, barely worth mentioning, really – lonely without her team.

"Weiss! You look great!"

Weiss's head jerked. A red-haired girl marched up to her – Ruby, Weiss remembered, plucking the name from her memories – holding a champagne flute of soda in one hand and dragging along a short girl in the other. Ruby wore a sleeveless red corset wrapped by a sash at the waist, an elegant wardrobe, but on her it looked cute instead, like a girl trying on her mother's dress, and Weiss was reminded of herself, once, when she snuck into Winter's room to try on Winter's clothes (no matter which dress she put on she was disappointed to find that none if them gave her Winter's poise, Winter's confidence, Winter's demeanor, until Winter entered to find everything strewn on the floor and a wide-eyed Weiss applying lipstick before the mirror) – and Weiss found herself smiling, then schooled her features back into a scowl.

"What did you do to your hair?" Ruby said. "I almost didn't recognize you. As expected of a high-class lady!"

"Ruby," Weiss said coolly.

Ruby twirled around, her dress swishing along the floor. "How do I look?"

"Lovely."

"I _told_ you so," Ruby said, beaming at the girl next to her.

The girl shrugged. Weiss had seen her several times on campus, always in the presence of Ruby and always at a distance. Tonight, she wore a black-and-white gothic lolita dress that was as out-of-place at the party as a corpse at a wedding. The most distinctive feature about the girl were her eyes – one pink, one brown, and yet it was not the color that caught Weiss's attention but the coldness, like two sunken stones. Weiss was surprised to find that the girl only came up to her shoulder. Her mass of pink-and-brown curls barely reached Weiss's chin.

"I don't believe we've met," Weiss said.

The girl rolled her eyes.

Weiss's eyebrow twitched.

"Weiss, this is Neo. Neo, Weiss," Ruby said, and then added, rather unnecessarily, "She's my teammate."

"A pleasure."

Neo yawned.

Weiss's fingers reflexively reached for her absent rapier.

"Neo's shy," Ruby said quickly. "Anyway, I heard your team helped organize the entire dance."

"We did," Weiss said. If you could call Blake's indifference, Jaune's incompetence, and Yang's mania as "help." Yang had been full of ideas about how to make this year's dance the greatest ever, before Weiss reminded her that they had as much budget as a weekly meal plan. Blake contributed as much as her shadow. Jaune had at least tried to help, but giving the man construction paper and a pair of scissors was like giving a chipmunk a bag of explosive Dust crystals. Unsurprisingly, it had fallen to Weiss to recruit volunteers, set up decorations, arrange the catering. And she had done it, of course. Because if you put a Schnee in charge of planning an event, you could expect it to be nothing less than a complete success.

"It was no big deal," Weiss said, trying to not look too pleased as Ruby clapped her hands together.

"You're amazing!" she exclaimed. Surreptitiously, she nudged closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. "So, who's the lucky guy?"

Weiss jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Over there. The blue-haired one. You can see him flirting with other girls."

Ruby looked embarrassed. "Oh."

"I don't really care," Weiss said, and it was true; she didn't. "It's just a formality."

And in all honesty, it hadn't even been Neptune's fault; Weiss had barely spoken to him since accepting him as her dance partner. She had found his questions annoying, his jokes, cumbersome. He had just been another one of the dozens of people who were drawn to her for the Schnee name, like a boy shopping for a phone and picking out the most expensive brand. Most critically, he had been the first. Weiss had assented entirely to stop others from asking. He was a useful shield.

"I'm perfectly fine," Weiss repeated.

"But…it's the Beacon Dance!" Ruby said. "The biggest event of the year! Well, except the tournament, of course. Don't you want to have fun?"

"Don't lump me in with the rest of you."

"Come on, Weiss. You know you want to."

"Leave me alone," Weiss snapped. "What do you know about me?"

Ruby's eyes lit up.

"More than you think."

She took a grand bow, extending a hand. "Might I have the pleasure of this dance?"

"What are you – " Weiss started, but Ruby had already grasped her hand and pulled her to the dance floor, where a sea of bodies shifted to make room. "I don't want to dance – " Weiss said, but she couldn't even hear her own voice lost in the music. The crowd squeezed them together. Ruby was close enough to touch, the smile on her face flashing from green to blue to white under the strobe lights, and this isn't how a dance should be at all, Weiss thought, a dance should be an ordered, elegant affair, I've been trained in ballet, ballroom, courante, not this gathering of savages twisting to the blare of music, where are the violins, the woodwinds, the cellos?

And then Ruby tugged her hand, spinning her around on an outstretched arm. A fourstep, Weiss thought, clumsily moving her feet to those steps drilled into her through countless hazy afternoons – a fourstep, an oversway, a promenade, except it was so difficult to concentrate when there were so many others around her and Ruby was so close, _so close_ , her perfume like rose petals crushed against Weiss's skin, and Weiss was making a fool out of herself, she knew, a Schnee unable to dance! – except Ruby didn't seem to care, her laughter ringing sweet and pure above the thrum of the bass, and in the dim, perfumed room nobody else seemed to care either, and Weiss found herself caring less and less until, an interminable eon later, breathless and dizzy, she realized the sound of music had deafened, and she was no longer on the dance floor but sitting down at one of the tables with Ruby with a light sheen of sweat covering their faces – and somehow they were still holding hands.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Ruby teased.

"I absolutely did _not_ enjoy it."

"It was my first time dancing," Ruby said, giggling. "Not bad, huh?"

"Your first time?" Weiss said, surprised. "But then why were you so – " confident, she was about to say, when you dragged me up there as if you had been doing it your entire life, fearless among the crowd, unafraid of failure, of scorn. I could resist your pull no more than our planet could escape the stars.

Weiss found herself laughing. Ruby stared at her, puzzled, but of course she would not understand what was so funny. An absurd question, Weiss thought, like asking the ocean why it crashed against the shore, or the moon why it came out at night, or a flower why it turned towards the sun.

And as she laughed, Weiss thought that perhaps the dance would not be so bad after all.

* * *

A/N: This chapter marks the end of Red Shores. Sorry for ending so abruptly, but real life stuff got in the way, and with the release of Vol. 4 so near, I would rather focus my efforts on writing new stories for that than eternally playing catch-up. But it's the journey, not the destination, right? I enjoyed writing Red Shores, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it.


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